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es.I have to admit that I like the way that this research was carried out. Most impressive in the use and manipulation of the available data. But the end finding is really not all that much of a surprise. iPhones tend toward the more expensive end of the market so therefore we'd expect to see those that own them clustering in the richer parts of town. It's a bit like finding out that there are more Ferraris in zip codes where richer people live, isn't it?

Your mobile phone could reveal a lot about your income, and even predict which part of town you live in, it has been claimed.

These new maps reveal that in the world's biggest cities, those in affluent areas are far more likely to own Apple's iPhone, while those in lower income areas almost always own an Android handset.

The maps echo findings from app makers and advertisers, who say that iPhone owners download and spend far more on apps than Android owners.

They plugged themselves into the Twitter firehose of information and sorted through those geolocations where they could tell where a tweet came from. They were then able to sort these by operating system of the mobile device that the tweet was sent on. This is all regular information in that information stream.

Excellent, so now they can create maps based on the geography of operating systems being used to tweet. And the thing is, a map of where the Apple iOS tweets are coming from lays rather well over the maps of where the rich parts of town are. And this is repeated across a number of different cities.

OK, good data manipulation: but who actually expected to find anything else? For Apple's iPhones are, to some extent, a Veblen Good. Yes, they're very good, this is true, but at least part of the reason that Apple can charge a premium for them is because everyone knows that they charge a premium for them. This means that an iPhone is more than just a phone, it's a statement about social position as well. This is reinforced by the fact that iPhones are more expensive than the run of the mill Android phone: meaning that we'd expect the market penetration among the better off to be higher anyway.

Another way of putting this is that Apple is a brand, appealing to those at the high end of the market. Which, not unnaturally, skews to those with higher incomes.

So, we already expect to find more iPhones among people with higher incomes: what do we find, more iPhones among areas where the higher income people live and hang out. This just isn't the most remarkable finding ever really: however good the original data search and manipulation is.

It's a but like doing a survey of restaurant prices. And finding that the expensive arugula and seared wahini joints are where the rich people live and the burger joints are in hte cheap parts of town. Useful confirmation but not terribly surprising, is it?